Aragon Théoricien/Praticien du Roman éd. par Katerine Gosselin, Olivier Parenteau (review)

subject. Overall, Glasco’s exploration of intertextuality in Toussaint’s novels—for example the links between Monsieur and Flaubert’s L’éducation sentimentale, Faire l’amour and Kawabata’s Snow Country, or Nue and Beckett’s L’innommable—is wellreasoned and insightful. She argues, however, that intertextual allusions are not necessarily the result of authorial intent but might stem from the author’s unconscious or the reader: “critics are free to see what the text can support, even in the alleged absence of authorial intention” (160). This can occasionally lead to arguments that appear to be based primarily on coincidence. Discussing L’appareil-photo, she writes of an optimism “we can perhaps relate to Proust” (92) or notes “it certainly seems plausible that Toussaint might be subtly alluding to Rimbaud” by repeating rien ne bougeait (93). At the same time Glasco does not discuss Kafka or Robbe-Grillet in her discussion of La réticence, for example, two authors that Toussaint has specifically mentioned as influences on the novel. Glasco’s text also suffers from repetitions (“These questions are left unanswered at the end of the novel, just as the ending of all of Toussaint’s other works leave us hanging and pondering,” is followed four lines later by“an ending that leaves the reader wondering is certainly no new technique for this author”[190]) and long paragraphs that begin with one subject only to conclude with a different one. Nevertheless, these issues are outweighed by the overall quality of the book, which is an important addition to the critical work on this major contemporary author. Bradley University (IL) Alexander Hertich Gosselin, Katerine, et Olivier Parenteau, éd. Aragon Théoricien/Praticien du Roman. Études Littéraires 45.1. Québec: Université de Laval, 2014. ISBN 978-2920949 -54-6. Pp. 168. $15 Can. This collection of six études sets out to explore and define the prolific literary legacy of Louis Aragon (1897–82) and his constant reflection on “les particularités et les possibilitiés du roman” (7). The authors of this collection focus on the dual and complementary nature of Aragon’s writing as both a théoricien and praticien of the novel, although his writing can be quite vertiginous at times and contradictory.Among the vast amount of writings by Aragon, only specific texts are addressed in this collection, which highlight this duality. Two articles by Claudia Bouliane and Olivier Parenteau focus in particular on the period of Monde réel (1934–51) during which Aragon moves away from surrealist writings to a period of socialist realism wherein the novel comes to represent “la réalité, la politique, l’histoire, l’identité, le sujet [...]. Le roman n’étant pour lui ni un genre ni même une forme” (12). Johanne Le Ray and Katerine Gosselin center their discussions on Aragon’s writings from the 1960s and 1970s, during which we find a constant reflection upon the definitions of roman, écriture , and questions of memory versus invention. Le Ray explores the relationship 262 FRENCH REVIEW 90.2 Reviews 263 between autobiography and the novel, and Aragon’s constant reticence at making distinctions of literary genres. Gosselin’s article compliments this discussion by exploring Aragon’s somewhat contradictory, yet complimentary notions of writing/reading and creation/investigation; she unravels Aragon’s argument in Je n’ai jamais appris à écrire ou les incipit that he does not write his novels, but rather reads them. Olivier Parenteau captures most astutely the duality of théoricien/praticien in his study of Les voyageurs de l’impériale, which Aragon wrote in 1965. Parenteau explains adroitly that this novel is profoundly self-reflective because it centers so closely on the act of writing; the constant intertextual discourse of Aragon’s two main characters, who are writers, come to represent “le travail biographique et fictionnel, soit les deux types d’écriture que le romancier du Monde réel cherche à réunir, à fusionner en vue de créer une œuvre ‘croisée’ et protéiforme, toujours ouverte aux jeux de polysémie” (65). This passage captures beautifully the glissement constant between (auto)biography and fiction that Aragon so skillfully illustrated in his writings, as well as...